Sustainable, Digital and Climate-Neutral Finishing Solutions from Brückner
Brückner, leading supplier of customized machinery and lines, presented innovative and trend-setting highlighted for textile finishing and coating at ITMA 2023 in Milan.
Brückner showed the next stenter generation Power-Frame SFP-4 with many new features: new electric / hydrogen-powered heating systems, intelligent software solutions for optimizing formulas, systems for heat-recovery and exhaust air purification, innovative application systems for chemicals, and newly developed machine concepts.
CO2 -free heating systems
The most important innovation of the Brückner dryer are without doubt the innovative heating systems. Driven by the energy crisis and the constant focus on energy-efficient solutions, new possibilities to combine different heating media like gas, steam, oil or electricity have been developed. In addition, Brückner also offers burners which can be operated with hydrogen in the future. These combination possibilities allow the textile finisher maximum flexibility in the choice of the energy carrier.
Another exciting development are solutions for the purely electric heating of industrial ovens by means of heat pumps, which Brückner offers together with a partner. In the present situation and with a view to the future, these new types of heating offer decisive advantages: Green hydrogen and/or electricity reduce the dependence on fossil raw materials and contribute considerably to minimize the CO2 footprint.
Smart Production Systems
Digital products and services are another highlight. On request, new lines are equipped with various intelligent assistance systems that support the machine operator in finding the optimum machine setting for each process. A special innovation is the new simulation tool ExperTex: with the help of artificial intelligence, the desired production process of drying or heat-setting is simulated on the computer. Different scenarios can then be compared with each other: Throughput times, energy consumption, CO2 footprint and production costs. This innovative system offers customers considerable added value, as it allows accurate pre-calculation of orders, opens up productivity gains and/or energy savings, and permits “right-first-time production” by means of pre-optimized formulas. Expert knowledge and years of experience in textile finishing are thus available at the push of a button. This tool and much more will be available to customers in the new myBrückner customer portal in the future.
Heat-recovery and exhaust air purification systems
The new generation of Eco-Heat heat-recovery and Eco-Air exhaust air purification systems features a new type of intelligent control. Both types of lines can also be retrofitted at any time to older lines from various manufacturers in order to realize the best possible energy savings and solve existing exhaust air problems. All exhaust air treatment systems can be tested in advance at customers’ sites by means of laboratory systems in order to better assess utilization rate and efficiency.
Innovative systems for the application of chemicals
Of course, customers can inform themselves on the Brückner booth also about numerous further possibilities to save primary resources such as energy, water, chemicals and waste water. Here, for example, the minimum application unit Eco-Coat should be mentioned, a new type of padder with minimum preparation quantity or residual liquor, and a further developed coating unit Opti-Coat 2 in 1, which combines the use of floating knife and knife-over-cylinder application in one system. With a high-precision coating cylinder and a perfectly ground coating knife, excellent results can be achieved for paste and foam coatings. In addition, the special design of the unit ensures optimum accessibility for cleaning and maintenance purposes.
New finishing machines
Another highlight is a completely new designed high-performance relaxation dryer Power-Dry which can be heated CO2-free by means of a high-temperature heat pump. In order to show the variety of Brückner’s product portfolio and to illustrate technologies in a realistic and “tangible” way, many machine models also exhibited.
Oldest Brückner customer invests in state-of-the-art coating line
Textilveredlung Drechsel GmbH, one of the leading contract finishers and coaters in Germany for several decades, invests in a state-of-the-art new coating line.
Drechsel was founded in 1950 at its current location in Selb, Upper Franconia, Germany, as dyehouse Geipel and Drechsel and initially dealt with the dyeing of yarns as well as the re-dyeing of used clothing.
To simplify the drying of these fabrics, the company invested in a stenter as early as 1952 and found a reliable partner in Brückner.
For more than 71 years now, the two companies have been working together in partnership and successfully and celebrated the completion of a new machine on the first ITMA exhibition day.
The heart of the new coating line is a 7 compartment stenter of the latest generation, Brückner Power-Frame SFP-4, which will be presented for the first time on ITMA.
The Power-Frame SFP-4 stenter is the most energy-efficient stenter on the market and is characterized by a newly developed air supply system for the introduction of preheated fresh air from a heat-recovery system into the thermal chamber and many other optimizations for maintenance and energy efficiency. Depending on the design, the new air supply system can increase the efficiency of a heat-recovery unit by more than 50%.
Each Brückner stenter is available with a wide range of heating systems, both direct gas heating and indirect heating systems (gas, steam, electric, oil) as well as combinations of these are possible – depending on which energy sources are available.
In addition, the new generation of lines is equipped with state-of-the-art monitoring and control systems, which help the machine operator to keep a permanent eye on the most important quality parameters as well as on the energy consumption and utilization of the line.
The line at Drechsel is also connected to the existing MES platform for production planning and control as well as for quality control via OPC-UA.